


Hypothermia

by I_Weave_Dreams



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2019-11-24 12:17:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18165092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Weave_Dreams/pseuds/I_Weave_Dreams
Summary: College!AUIt’s been 7 months and Adam still hasn’t let Ronan visit him at college. Adam has his reasons. Ronan has his suspicions.





	1. Shiver

**Author's Note:**

> **Hello! Just some important things to note before you begin reading.**  
>  This story contains angst and jealousy because I am a sucker for both of those. BUT! Know that I will ALWAYS write a happy ending. I’m not here for that sad shit. Nuh uh. Never gonna happen for any of my writing. So you’re safe if you’re worried about any of that.
> 
> This is probably going to be a 2 or 3 parter. Not sure yet. Still finishing it up.  
> I know nothing about Princeton. Or its surrounding areas. I wanted to do research but I knew I'd get bogged down in the details like I always do and so I'd never finish this. So I chose to sacrifice some authenticity in those regards. So apologies for anyone who is familiar with the campus!! I've made all the the names up. Please forgive <3  
> That’s it! Enjoy! <3

**Tuesday**

“So are we going to ever get to meet this mystery boyfriend or what?”

Adam didn’t look up from his essay on the economy in 1950’s rural America. Half of his brain was sifting through dozens of claims that could properly support his thesis that industrialism was the downfall of American agriculture. While the other half flickered on an off, the power outages so quick and minute it had to be the trick of the light. Except they weren’t. Adam was working on the hypothesis that he could survive college on micro sleeps alone. 

So far that theory was proving false if you took into account him nearly falling asleep during Professor Horner’s Abnormal Psych class on Wednesday. If you didn’t take that into account, Adam Parrish was doing just fine 7 months into his undergrad studies at Princeton University.

“Viv and I are taking bets on how long until Adam cracks and admits his boyfriend has been imaginary this entire time.”

“Yeah, no way Adam has time to devote to an actual human being. He couldn’t even keep the dorm plant I bought him alive. You’ve got to water a boyfriend at least, like, three times a week to keep one alive.”

The laughter and voices of his friends filtered somewhere in the back of Adam’s brain. Somewhere he could identify who was saying what, but right now, it didn’t matter. His romantic life had been a topic of conversation and speculation often enough he already knew how this conversation went. He could recite it in his sleep. Which was nothing to brag about. What he needed to be reciting in his sleep was his speech for his Speech 102 class on the ethics of replacing doctors with robotic technology during surgery.

“Parrish is too in love with his books to love a human being the same way.” This, he knew, was said by his friend Ellie because Ellie made cooing noises, loudly, in his hearing ear before planting a kiss onto his cheek.

Adam stiffened on reflex at the gesture. Once upon a time any physical touch would have meant a fist to his face-ribs-stomach-etc. Until he’d met Blue. Then it was the occasional hand hold turned hug that whispered of possibilities that turned to an arm slung around his waist in comfort or comradery or to amplify his psychic abilities.

Then there was Ronan. 

And, well. He breathed out. His body relaxed. His skin burned.

Once, he’d starved for human touch. The desire for it was like an ache in his chest. A black hole that no matter how many nice words or peals of laughter or long conversations you threw into it, it hungered for more. More physical, less conceptual. More tangible, less incorporeal. 

He’d thought the black hole would disappear, its gluttonous mouth stuffed to over satisfaction after he’d gotten together with Ronan. Go reverse super nova. And it did. At least it seemed to. He was always hungry for Ronan’s touch, but the need for contact from others lessened. The mere brush of skin or pat on the back or nudge of an elbow did not send a crackle of electricity down his skin any longer.

But now, 7 months into college and getting to see Ronan only a couple times a month if he was lucky, had created a monster of proportions he hadn’t even thought possible. Which was saying a lot when you knew a dreamer who could create entire worlds in his head. You starved more, he realized, when you knew what it was like to be well fed, than if you’d never known what it was like to be full in the first place. 

And when it came to loving Ronan Lynch, everything was done at 1,000 miles per hour. Touching. Kissing. Driving. Dreaming. Fucking. Shouting. Breathing. Fighting. 

Living.

Adam forced himself to breathe.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Right now he was forced to go 30 in a 500 MPH zone.

He sighed and shut his book. His studies or his longing or dreaming while he was awake was going to devour him one of these days.

His fingers ghosted over the skin of his cheek where Ellie had kissed.

Jesus _God_ he missed Ronan Lynch. 

“I’m studying,” Adam said in way of answer. 

“We know,” his friends chorused. This was a standard reply from Adam. Stock form. No frills. 

_Let’s go to the bar! It’s $2 Vegas Bombs tonight!  
I’m studying._

_That band you like is playing in the Conclave Center. The one with the hot drummer. Viv is gonna try to get his number. Or just get in his pants. Whatever. You gotta come!  
I’m studying._

_Free tacos with a margarita order at Freddy’s tonight, coming?  
I’m studying. _

It was always the same. Better than being sent to voicemail. You’d have to order the Premium Package if you hoped to get an actual conversation from Adam Parrish. And only the Gold Package included a night out with drinks and a carefree attitude. And no one could afford that. Especially not Adam Parrish.

 _I am unknowable._ The familiar mantra unfurled inside Adam like misty leaves brushing against his lungs. It’d taken on a new meaning when he’d gotten to college. Everyone seemed so _young_ here. So new. So fresh to the world. Baby fawns walking for the first time on shaky legs as snappable as toothpicks.

Adam knew he wasn’t any older than them. But they all seemed so _fresh_. Their eyes had not witnessed the tragedies his had. Their hands had never been claimed by a demon, their hearts had never been torn from their chests as they witnessed their best friend die and be revived again. Their veins had not been ripped out like roots of a tree as a magical forest that coursed through their bodies like an enchanted lifeline had sacrificed itself.

Something tangy and unpleasant curled in his stomach and coated his tongue. God, he was turning into Gansey, wasn’t he? Take away the crippling fear of never having enough money. Food. Love. And he became oblivious to his privilege, didn’t he?

It wasn’t true that he never went out. That he turned down all of the requests like some nobility who sprinkled his precious time sparingly amongst his kingdom of subservients. He did a lot with them.

He was just being difficult and he knew it. The isolated echoes of Henrietta never quite released their reigns on his chest cavity.

Jesus _God_ he missed Ronan Lynch.

“I _**was**_ studying,” Adam corrected, mouth a scowl with no bite to his teeth.

“Ayy, the king graces us with his presence!” Ellie cried even though Adam had been next to her this whole time. Psychically, anyway.

It was still odd hearing his college friends refer to him as _king_ , even in jest. That word was so deeply ingrained in his association with Gansey that it had taken Adam awhile to stop looking over his shoulder every time someone said the word, expecting to see his golden-haired friend standing in the doorway.

Jesus _God_ he missed Gansey.

And Blue.

Even Henry Cheng. Sometimes.

That he missed Noah went without saying. That was a wound that would never heal. It’d stopped festering though, so that was progress.

Adam blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the common room rather than endless sentences about crop irrigation and pest plagues. The common room in Baker Hall was a beautiful and grand place. Lush and generous in its furnishings. The old bricks had stories to tell in posh accents. The fire place crackled like laughter shared amongst the closest of friends. Portraits of alumni smiled down at the new recruits, pride drawn into the creases of their perfect smiles. 

Adam breathed in. It was so the opposite of Henrietta, of the trailer home he grew up in, he still had to make sure this wasn’t all a cruel dream. He knew too much of the power of dreams to trust in his reality so easily. 

But this was real. 

Princeton. College. This new group of friends that wasn’t RonanGanseyBlueNoah. 

It was real. And it was his. No one else could lay claim to these acquisitions. They were his and his alone. Glendower had been Gansey’s quest even though they’d all had a stake to claim in it at the end. This was Adam’s. No one had helped him get it. 

Adam tried not to feel guilty for loving it so much as he shifted the text book off his lap and onto the table in front of him. It was like unhinging a limb. Or a shield. He felt naked without it.

“So, c’mon. When do we get to meet the elusive Ronan Lynch? There’s nothing online about him. No social media to speak of. Are you sure he’s not a serial killer? I saw that documentary on HBO about that one guy who was stupid handsome but cut up all of his lovers into pieces and buried them in his garden. He said it helped his roses grow. He won, like, a bunch of competitions for his flowers. Hey, didn’t you say Ronan was a farmer?” Nico asked, raising a dark, implicating eyebrow from his seat on the couch across from Adam.

“Adam isn’t _dumb,”_ Ellie defended. “He’d never date a serial killer.”

“Oh, but he’ll date a ghost!” Nico threw up his hands, admonishing Ellie’s ongoing theory of Adam’s romantic entanglements with the incorporeal.

Ellie shrugged a delicate shoulder, her soft pink sweater bunching. “Ghosts can be hot.”

Adam couldn’t help but think of Noah, and the laughter that bloomed in his chest tangled with thorns of sadness that pricked his insides. He knew Noah would get a kick out of this conversation. That he’d preen and declare, “You’re ABSOLUTELY right, Ellie! Did you know ghosts can be quite corporeal when connected to a strong enough ley line? Here, I can show you.”

Adam rubbed a tired hand at the back of his tired neck. “Lync - Ronan has a lot of work at home to do. He doesn’t have time to drive up here.” It was an excuse as tired and used as Adam was, but it usually did the trick. That it wasn’t entirely the truth jarred at Adam’s conscious. But he wasn’t Ronan Lynch. He never claimed that he didn’t lie.

Ellie shared a meaningful look with Vivian. Who shared a meaningful look with Nico. Who shared a meaningful look with Sai. Cam and Reagan weren’t here to have meaningful looks shared with them. Thankfully. They were too sharp to get one over on.

“So you can make the six-hour drive to see him but he can’t drive up to see you? Ever?” Sai prodded. Sai, the Ethics major, loved to play devil’s advocate when it came to conversations of “fairness”. Adam loved the stimulating chance at conversation at first. Until it turned towards him. Which it did far too often lately.

The natives were growing restless. Adam had anticipated hard classes, intelligent classmates, and impossibly high standards here at Princeton. What he hadn’t expected was students with impossibly high standards expecting answers out of him. He was a test they were failing to solve. That didn’t sit well with Ivy League over achievers.

_You are unknowable, Adam Parrish._

75% of that was Adam’s own fault now, not the result of his deal made with a sentient forest any longer. 7 months in and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to correct that or not.

Adam leveled Sai with a cool look. Sai met Adam’s pointed stare with a raise of his eyebrow. 

_Come out and play,_ it said. 

_I’d rather not,_ Adam’s narrowed gaze replied.

Adam instead made a point of looking around the abnormally quiet common room. “Where’s Cam?”

Ellie and Sai and Viv and Nico shared a pointed look of another kind. “Cam’s at a political thing. He should be back soon. Why do you ask?”

“I told him I’d give him my Latin notes. I need to go to bed soon.”

Ellie nodded from her seat next to him, her expression saying _‘Right, sure,_ that’s _the reason you’re looking for Cam. We totally believe you.’_

Adam’s brow dug in further. “What?”

“You didn’t ask where Reagan was,” Ellie hinted.

“It’s Tuesday. She’s at lacrosse practice,” Adam said.

This did nothing to satiate the suggestive arch of Ellie’s smile.

Before Adam could reply, a voice boomed through the common room. “The library will now be open 24 hours a day, six days a week!”

A moment later a boy made from gold stepped into sight. Coming to stand in front of the room, hand placed proudly on his chest, he declared, “President Sam agreed that the pursuit of education should not be limited to the hours of 5 AM to 11 PM here on campus. He applauds our verve and quest for knowledge. The meeting was a success.”

The others cheered and applauded. Cam’s rack of straight white teeth shone against his perpetually tanned skin. An aristocratic nose framed an All American smile. He was the kind of guy Adam expected to see on signs running for the Senate or preaching the benefits of flossing daily. 

He also reminded Adam of the cut outs he used to keep of guys in magazines. The ones of men in expensive clothes, sleek cars, and devil-may-care attitudes. The kinds of guys who belonged in stainless steel homes and had pure bred dogs they went hunting with. 

Adam no longer kept those cut outs. And those guys were no longer what he aimed for. But still, he couldn’t help but admire the way Cam could command a room. He was a lot like Gansey in that way.

Adam, who doled out his praise far more selectively, for he had seen many grander things in his life, said, “Why only six days?”

Cam turned his beaming smile onto him. He sighed in an appeasing way. “Sadly, the separation between Church and State is still a blurry line here. Sunday is still to be to recognized as a holy day of rest before the hours 7 AM and after the hours 9PM. God doesn’t sleep, it would seem. That, or he’s a night owl like you, Parrish.”

Adam’s skin prickled at feeling _known._ And by someone like Cam. Although Adam still preferred Gansey’s version of the All American Boy, there was a small reprieve in being known, on a surface level, by Cam. Where Gansey, his long time friend, knew the visceral stuff that went on beneath the surface. Adam’s sleeping habits were a safe space he didn’t mind having discovered despite his show of being a healthy boy with healthy sleep patterns that all his other friends bought into.

Nico scoffed. “Adam a night owl? Pshh. Please. Our little book worm was just fretting over sharing his Latin notes with you so he could scamper off to bed.”

Cam’s politician smile remained but his eyes changed as he shared a silent exchange with Adam that said _‘Your secret is safe with me’._

Adam shifted in his seat. His sleeping habits didn’t _feel_ like a secret. They were just an excuse to retire to his room when he needed to study into the late hours of the night without his friends pressuring him to study in a group setting. Or go out for late night adventures. 

But maybe they were. A secret. No, he knew they were. If everyone else knew it was a ruse it would make getting them off his back a much more difficult task. Adam, who hadn’t known how to take the easy road his entire life, had never sought it out, still found this one a battle he had no desire to fight. So it was a secret after all. A secret that Cam, apparently, knew. 

He didn’t know how he felt about Cam being able to read him so well for a college friend. Only Reagan could usually do that here and that was because she’d been his first friend on campus. 2/6 he could live with, he thought. Though it felt a bit like losing something. Or relinquishing something, though he didn’t know what that was yet.

“Sorry, Adam. The meeting ran long. I can grab those notes from you tomorrow. I’ll have a word with Angela. I think she’ll allow me to extend the deadline another day or two.”

 _Angela_ was Professor Yatts to everyone else who wasn’t Cameron Lockbrook. Advanced Latin professor. That they were on a first name basis didn’t surprise Adam. He felt an old ache of jealousy flare up like a disease one thought had been cured. And maybe it had. Maybe it was just a phantom pain. Again, Adam thought of Gansey and the skill Adam had never quite mastered of turning elders into colleagues with charm and candor alone. 

“Sure,” Adam said. “No problem.”

“Mind if I sit?” Cam indicated at the space next to Adam. His seat was technically a love seat with room for two. Currently his bag was occupying the secondary space. 

_‘Parrish is too in love with his books to love a human being the same way,’_ Ellie’s earlier words echoed through his head. 

Adam just nodded and removed his bag. Cam filled the space, his kingly presence emanating like a tangible thing Adam could reach out and touch, though Cam remained a respectable distance away on his cushion.

The reason Adam had wanted Cam to appear earlier was because, like Gansey, he had an acute awareness of social situations. Anytime the others pressured Adam about Ronan and Cam caught onto Adam’s edginess, he took control. Like a seasoned sea captain, he artfully steered the conversation into safer harbors with the others being none the wiser. 

Despite Ellie’s suggestive eyebrows, his interest in Cam went no further than that. 

“I’m going to bed,’ Adam said as if to prove that. Cam was here and Adam had no interest in remaining. Sleep was more important. 

Adam took joy in Ellie’s disappointed frown. Her plots and plannings spoiled for the night. He allowed Cam to pat him on the knee and Ellie to squeeze his hand in ways of goodbye as he took off for his dorm.

With the door closed safely behind him, he let his eyes flutter shut and his bag sag to the floor. His head rested against the door and he breathed in deep. Branches and rays of watery sunlight filtered between lush leaves swayed behind his eyelids. Glowing red fish swan in a lazy breeze and dandelion seeds burst like tiny firework blooms and floated up to become a carnival of stars.

Cabeswater kept his tired body from sliding down the door. It was a small, fragile thing this far away from their ley line. It was also an infant Cabeswater where the old one had been an ancient elder who did the teaching. This time, Adam was the teacher and Cabeswater was the student constantly trying to learn about Adam and the Greywaren and the others who were so important to it. Or had been, at one point. Ronan was working on making this new Cabeswater just as good as the last one. It was a process. 

Adam wished, suddenly, with a fierce desire to feel Ronan’s dream rain against his skin. The kind that made him feel both happy and sad at the same time. He wanted its cleansing energy. College was hard. He was tired to his bones. Even the marrow protested. 

_Worth it. Worth it. Worth it,_ his brain chanted. His cells were reluctant to believe their cerebral ruler. 7 months in. But they were starting to get in line like good little soldiers.  
They’d been born and bred into hard work. Though his body lacked its dusty second skin thanks to departing Henrietta’s southern fields, it still remembered where it came from. 

Adam changed and got into bed in just his boxers. He pulled out his phone. Texts from Blue and a missed call from Gansey. There were a few social media notifications. His college friends had set him up on an array of different sites once he’d gotten a smart phone. A gift he’d allowed from Gansey because it was an old, used model and it’d been Adam’s birthday. Plus, some of his college courses offered extra credit through the use of certain apps. 

Adam ignored all of these. 

There were no messages from Ronan.

Adam breathed. 

In.

Out.

In. 

Out.

He’d told Ronan several hours ago that he needed to study. That he’d talk to him tonight. Ronan, ever devout in fostering the things he cared about, had left Adam entirely alone. Ronan was hell bent on Adam getting the full college experience. That meant no distractions. No contact until absolutely necessary. Even if Adam swore he wouldn’t respond, that he’d just like an update on Ronan’s day now and then, Ronan refused to indulge him. 

Lying in bed, staring at Ronan’s name in his contacts list, Adam thought back on his last few days at the Barns before he’d left for college this past summer. The night when black liquid had bled from Ronan’s nose-mouth-ears because he wasn’t dreaming. Hadn’t all summer. Though they hadn’t known that was the cause of the leakage at first. The way Ronan had torn through his BMW like a hurricane in his fury to get Adam off to college. Cleaning it out so Adam could take it to school because Adam’s shitbox was still on bricks in the driveway. Adam had said he wasn’t leaving if Ronan continued to fall apart like that. Ronan wasn’t taking no for an answer. He wasn’t going to be the thing that stopped Adam Parrish from going to college, from getting the fuck out of Henrietta and achieving everything Adam wanted, no _needed_ out of life to be happy.

It had been such a shithead move. Adam’s anger at Ronan for trying to ship him off early, for disregarding his own wellbeing to get Adam away from him had warred with his fear for Ronan. Thankfully Opal had made them realize Ronan just needed to dream to stop the leaking of black dream stuff or whatever that terrifying liquid was. 

Adam had spent the last couple of remaining days in Henrietta’s stifling heat with Ronan in relative peace. Or as much peace as he could with a half goat-girl and a boy with a penchant for danger. He’d take chaos over peace any day.

Adam hit Call on Ronan’s name.

It rang five times. No answer.

In.

Out.

In. 

Out.

He called again.

No answer.

Adam laid the phone down on his chest and stared at the ceiling. Silence filled his hearing ear. It was an insidious sort of silence, worse than the one in his deaf ear. That one had no choice but to hear nothing. His other one, the hearing one, heard nothing because he was alone and had no say in the matter. 

The New Jersey night life was muffled by the expensive walls of Princeton. Only the best for its budding geniuses. Only a soft blue glow emanated from the window that Adam hadn’t drawn the curtains over. Because while Adam wanted to be alone he didn’t want to be _alone-alone._ He wanted to know he existed in the world but not be bothered by its eccentrics. 

Three minutes passed. 

Adam’s phone rang.

“Parrish?” Ronan’s gravely voice broke the silence when Adam didn’t initially say anything.

Adam’s heart revved and then stalled in his chest. “Were you sleeping?”

“No.”

“Were you dreaming?” Adam asked because the two were not mutually exclusive. Sleeping was merely a byproduct of dreaming. A necessity to achieve the desired outcome. 

“Yes,” Ronan said to Adam. And then, not to Adam, “Jesus _fuck._ What did I say about watching me dream? You’re creepy as hell standing in the dark like that. Shut the door.”

A muffle argument happened on the other end. Adam knew Opal must have been sneaking a peek at Ronan while he slept. She enjoyed doing that, though he and Ronan hadn’t figured out why yet. 

Adam couldn’t help but smile as he listened to the ensuing argument. His chest ached at the familiarity of it and also the foreignness of it because it was no longer a daily part of his life. When had he last been exasperated at Opal for sneaking off with one of his socks to eat it in the fields? When had he last seen Ronan toss sinking disks into their manmade pool for Opal to dive in and retrieve?

It felt like a different lifetime. 

His body ached for the Barns.

His soul longed for Ronan Lynch.

“Yes. Okay. Christ. I’ll tell Adam you said hi. Now go to sleep.”

A sharp cry of protest. More shuffling.

“God, Opal. Not _sleep-sleep_ like the cattle. Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean. Temporary sleep. Don’t just stand there. Nod your head like you understand,” Ronan said, though his exasperation was more comforting than admonishment. “You can rummage through the trash tomorrow and eat whatever the hell you want if you go to bed. Alright, _alright.”_

“Opal says ‘hi’,” Ronan, his mouth pressed too close to the phone, breathed into the mic. 

“Hi,” Adam said, and wondered if Ronan could hear the painful way he smiled. He hoped not. Ronan would probably hang up if he thought this whole distance thing was too hard on Adam. They’d already come dangerously close to that on a number of occasions. “Tell Opal I said screw The Man. Go to bed whenever she wants.”

“Fucking helpful, Parrish,” Ronan growled into the phone. 

Ronan told Opal Adam said hi. And after what sounded like a small rebellion as Opal attempted to commandeer the phone and took a bite out of the window curtain in protest when she wasn’t allowed, Ronan was finally alone in the room. 

“That _kid,”_ Ronan breathed through his teeth. “Everything’s a production with her.”

“Wonder where she learned it from,” Adam said, smirking into the phone. He hoped Ronan heard that.

“Screw you, Parrish,” Ronan said, not unfondly.

Adam closed his eyes in the dark room. His chest rose and fell, air moving through his lungs with addictive ease. Everything was so difficult, in need of controlling during his day. These stolen moments with Ronan on the phone each night were his only reprieve. He lived for them.

Ronan asked him about his day. Adam recounted it in detail. He used to think Ronan would get bored with the routine of it. After the first couple weeks when he’d settled in, he started to say it was ‘fine’ and try to move onto something more exciting. His attempt at not boring Ronan, a dreamer of worlds, a dark god living in a bland reality, with his stale mortal routine, had resulted in a week long argument. 

Ronan apparently mistook Adam’s attempts as flippancy. As disinterest. It had taken some time to settle that misunderstanding. Now he recounted his day in almost painstaking detail. Anything to keep Ronan on the phone for a little longer.

The frustrating thing about Ronan was that he didn’t hold himself to the same standard when it came to information sharing.

“You know, chores and shit,” Ronan replied when asked about his day. 

When Adam pressed for details, Ronan reluctantly gave in. He told him how he’d repaired more of the cabinets in the house. Re-painted the chipped back steps. How he’d dreamt a rooster to crow old Irish jigs at dawn to wake the Barns’ inhabitants. But the rooster kept mistaking the security lights in the back of the house for sunrise, so every time they went off when an animal moved in the fields or he or Opal went outside at night, the careening sound of bagpipes would break across the silent fields and scare the shit out of the cattle. He was working on a fix. 

Adam clutched at his sides, uncontrollable laughter causing his abs to burn in protest. It was times like these he was thankful for having a room of his own. No roommate to worry about waking up with these late night calls.

“It’s not fucking funny, Parrish. I spent two hours last night calming the cattle down. Bovine Wonder Boy wouldn’t stop ramming into his corral until I bribed him with hay. Brown bastard.”

Adam refrained from saying, again, _‘Wonder where he learned it from._ ’ Instead, he said, “I think you like the bagpipes. Otherwise you would have dreamed a cure already.”

“I’ve _tried._ It’s not as easy as you think, modifying an already made dream. We’re not all magicians.”

Adam made a sound in protest.

“Dream me something,” Ronan said, his voice suddenly lower. More intimate. Honey-coated gravel. 

Adam squeezed his eyes shut, his insides clenching. God. Ronan didn’t know the kind of control he had over Adam when he spoke like that. Breathy requests. So straight forward. A simple demand. But nothing with Ronan Lynch was simple. And at the same time it was. 

So. It wasn’t. 

Adam could touch himself to Ronan’s voice alone. Especially how he sounded late at night like this. Stripped raw by his dreams. Night acting as a shield. No need to jest and posture, no need to hold his middle finger up to the world so it knew to fuck off and leave him to his own devices. 

Even now Adam’s hand slid down his bare chest to the hem of his boxers. It had a mind of its own. But it wasn’t like when the demon had controlled his hands. Had stolen them. In this case, his mind wanted this and his body was reacting at the same time. 

Still, Adam forced his wandering hand into a fist. He felt his cheeks flame even in the darkness of the night where no one could see him.

Connected as he was to the ley line, he always felt _watched._ By someone or something. That that someone or something probably had no knowledge of lust or carnal desires didn’t matter. Adam was a secretive creature. He had no desire to be known by anyone or anything regardless of their level of sentience without his permission.

“I’m not a dreamer,” Adam said after several silent seconds.

“But you know everything.”

Adam laughed. A quick _Ha!_

“You do,” Ronan insisted languidly. Adam could picture him throwing an arm behind his head, back tattoo stretching and clawing and reaching as he shifted around to get more comfortable. 

“Dream another rooster then. One that can silence the sound of bag pipes or some shit.”

Ronan’s laugh was unguarded. It _gave_ instead of taking away. Adam’s chest swelled with the sound of it. Cabeswater trapped it into a ball of water and sunshine and mist. It captured the sound for Adam without Adam needing to ask it to. Knowing he’d want to save it for later when he needed it. 

_Thank you,_ Adam thought to Cabeswater without actual thinking it. It was a feeling. A fleeting, soundless thing. Cabeswater recognized it all the same. A silhouette of branches rustled against his dorm wall before dispersing back into the darkness.

“Now I’m going to have two roosters that can do jack shit and nothing to wake the Barns.”

Adam shrugged, smiling into the darkness even though Ronan couldn’t see him. “Dream a third rooster then.”

Ronan’s responding laugh was a thing of dreams.

The words were out of Adam’s mouth before he could stop them. “Come visit me.”

Ronan’s laugh cut off like a snapped power line. It went out all at once. No warning. No stuttering to a halt. No flickering of lights to announce its departure.

“What did you say, Parrish?”

“Come visit me,” Adam repeated before he could lose his nerve. He was all heart right now. He would not give his brain a chance to don its battle armor, to shout its battle cry of all the reasons Adam _shouldn’t_ ask Ronan Lynch to visit him.

A minute. 

An hour.

A lifetime passed before Ronan responded. And when he did, it was an accusation.

“Why?”

Adam wasn’t offended by his boyfriend’s response, though he still felt its barbed edge hook into his ribs.

“Do I need a reason?” Adam shot back, acid in his voice, his hackles raising on instinct even though he knew Ronan was perfectly justified in his skepticism. That he was in the wrong here, not Ronan. 

“Yeah, you fucking do when I’ve been trying to come visit you for _months_ and you keep saying no.”

 _Forget it,_ a voice inside Adam snarled. He trapped it before it unleashed itself. 

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

“I know. I know,” Adam said in way of apology. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, yanking at the roots. Reveling in the pain. Knowing he deserved it. God. Ronan was rubbing off on him.

“My friends think you’re imaginary,” Adam tried for levity, knowing it rang a little false. “They think I’m making you up. That I’m in a secret relationship with my text books. Or a ghost.”

“Noah would be pleased to hear that. I don’t think you’re his type though.” There was still an edge to Ronan’s voice, but Adam knew he was forgiven.

“What?” Adam protested. “What’s Noah’s type then?”

“Midgets. In primary colors.”

Adam barked a laugh. “Blue? Really?”

Adam couldn’t see him, but he knew there was a smile slicing across Ronan’s face just now. “They kissed once. Noah told me.”

It took a moment for Adam to get over his shock. He slapped a hand over his face. “Jesus. Noah’s dead and he still got further with Blue than I ever did.”

There was a mutual silence that said both parties enjoyed the humor of that reality. 

“Did you mean it?” Ronan said after a couple minutes.

Adam chewed at his bottom lip. 

_No._

“Yes.”

Silence.

“When?”

_Never._

“This weekend?”

Silence.

More silence.

“Okay.”

Adam’s fingers dug into his chest. “Really?”

Adam could practically hear the heavy roll of Ronan’s eyes. “No. I just really fucking enjoy joking about my travel plans. Do you want to hear the one about when I almost drove to the grocery store but changed my mind at the last minute?”

Adam laughed. “Fuck you, Lynch.”

“Hopefully this weekend,” Ronan replied, voice dark and simmering all of a sudden. Zero to a thousand in a matter of seconds.

The change caused Adam’s breath to hitch. His fingers stretched for the hem of his boxers again, dipping underneath the band this time, pushing their luck. 

Adam licked his lips. He breathed out slowly. Shakily.

Ronan breathed out slowly in answer. 

Both boys longed. Both boys acknowledged the other’s longing with more slow breaths. 

“Ronan,” Adam said, more noise than actual words. He was so hard it hurt. _God._ Was anyone else so fucked for their boyfriend they got hard at the sound of his fucking _voice?_

“Adam,” Ronan breathed from his end of the phone. Adam. Not Parrish. The simple title nearly undid Adam and he hadn’t even made it past the elastic band of his boxers.

“I’ll see you Friday,” Ronan said.

It took a couple seconds for Adam to realize Ronan had hung up. 

“Shit,” Adam spoke to the darkness of his room. He flicked on his bedside lamp and grabbed his Econ book. He wasn’t sleeping tonight anyway.


	2. Slow Pulse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan arrives at Adam's college for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hello! So, uh, in case you haven’t noticed the projected chapter count has jumped from 2 to 4. Whoops! I’ve fallen completely in love with this and it’s growing into an untamable monster. I wanted to originally write this in smaller parts but it’s demanding to be more.**
> 
>  
> 
> **So here. Have chapter two. It’s sizzling and teasing and daunting and a little foreboding. Enjoy <3**

**Wednesday**

“Ronan’s coming here. On Friday. Like, here-here? To Princeton?”

Adam breathed through his nose. He was already regretting telling his friends. 

_Regretting asking Ronan to come, you mean,_ a voice nagged at the back of his mind. No. _No._ That’s _not_ what he meant. 

Adam splayed his fingers across the pages of his textbook, wishing he could fall in between the tales of Greek mythology heroics and tragedies. He’d bet his full-ride scholarship the Hydra didn’t have to deal with probing questions about its relationship status from its friends.

 **Friend:** A noun if he looked it up in the dictionary. 

1\. **A person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.**

Did that apply to how Adam felt towards this group of people at college? Given his personal history, what normally attached him to people was their penchant for magic and mischief. And perpetual craving and or employment for/at Nino’s Pizza. 

“Yes,” Adam said, forcing restraint into his words that wanted to bite. Like an animal that’d been teased past the point of its normally amiable nature. Trivialities like this hadn’t come easy to Adam at first. He wasn’t used to conversations like this with RonanGanseyBlueNoah. The shallowest conversation they’d ever had was about the depth of a puddle in Cabeswater that gave the illusion it was miles deep, but when you stepped into it, it only went up to your knees. So, fairly shallow, all things considered.

He’d learned, though. It was a skill, he told himself, he’d need when dealing with the real world. That he considered Cabeswater and magical ley lines and girls with kissing curses his real world was another thing Adam was learning to readjust. He’d always been a skilled student. He was doing well. So far.

2\. **A person who gives assistance; patron; supporter.**

That seemed more fitting towards his Princeton _friends._ They had study groups together. They kept Adam from being swallowed whole by his Econ book. They _assisted._ Sure, they didn’t fight off demons or go traipsing through magical forests where all four seasons could be walked through in a single afternoon. But they also didn’t require saving. At least not from anything worse than a tequila-induced hangover. That he didn’t have to help these people fight multi-dimensional beings and hired assassins didn’t make them any less worthy of friendship.

Adam ignored the ache in his chest. Like an old stab wound that wanted to remind you it was an old stab wound. A battle scar. That you’d been a warrior in an unwilling war. But a warrior all the same. That you’d been part of a destiny far greater than midterms and white collar jobs and political soirees. 

_More, more, more,_ the stab wound shouted. Be _more_ It commanded like it had Gansey’s power of intention. 

_I AM being more,_ Adam growled at the ache. _I’m at goddamn Princeton. A boy born from dirt learning to claw his way up with the ivy. Constantly striving towards the sun. Reaching for the universe and beyond. How much more can I be?_

He wanted to shout it from the top of the northern tower, the highest peak at Princeton campus.

The ache ached back at him, unconvinced. 

“I think he’ll be Irish,” Sai said without prejudice. Because he was diplomatic.

“I think he’ll wear plaid,” Nico said. Because he was an idiot.

“I think he’ll have a nice smile,” Ellie said. Because she was kind but naïve. Ronan _didn’t_ have a nice smile. But he had nice _teeth._ Which he sometimes organized into a smile. Or a sneer. Or a smirk.

Normally he organized his teeth into a weapon. Because even his smiles could draw blood. 

“I think he’ll be a hard worker,” Vivian said. Because she was practical.

“I think he’ll be a shark,” Reagan said. Because she was clever. “A tiger shark. They’re the deadliest shark in the world, you know.” It wasn’t a question. Just a statement of fact. 

Cam said nothing.

Adam tore savagely at the blueberry scone on his plate. Long, elegant fingers that were more accustomed to tinkering around a greasy car engine than fancy breakfast foods, had it disassembled in seconds. 

His gaze flickered to Cam, who sat across the heavy oak table from him in the Dining Hall. Dark hair sat in effortless curls on top of his head. He wore them like a crown. Adam only stared because normally Cam would interject on his behalf at this point. 

_‘Did you know the last time my parents visited Princeton they swore their room was haunted. Has anyone’s parents stayed at the Renaissance Hotel? Room 304?’_ Cam would say, or something equally interesting that would entice their group of friends into a conversation juicier than the one they perceived would occur with Adam.

Cam was silent, though, as he poured over his astronomy text book. 

Shame reared its head. Adam hadn’t realized until he’d come to college how much he’d relied on Gansey to handle all the taxing conversations Adam had no interest in having. It hadn’t felt like a gift at the time, like a handout. Everyone wanted to speak to Gansey anyway. Adam just happened to be orbiting his field. At least that was what he’d assumed. 

How many times had people tried to draw him into conversation, only for Adam to reply with a nod and the quick handing of the baton for Gansey to take off with the rest of the social situation? He didn’t know. And it frustrated him. 

Now he was relying on Cam. Adam mentally clenched his eyes shut. Jesus, he needed to stop trying to replace his friends with newer models. They all paled in comparison anyway.

Adam was about to look away when Cam suddenly looked up. He met Adam’s stare. Adam blinked rapidly, feeling _caught._ Something plagued the space between Cam’s normally affable brows, pinching them together. But when he saw Adam staring they shook themselves out. Persuasive eyebrows rose up into dark curls. 

“Has anyone got their phone out? We’re supposed to predict fellow students’ horoscopes for homework but I’m not sure of the ruling planet at the moment.”

This resulted in the group all vying for Cam to read their horoscope for practice. (And Nico’s helpful insight that “Uranus Is my ruling planet, Cam. Wanna look at it through a telescope?”) 

Between the sudden bombardment, Adam allowed Cam to catch his eye. 

_Thanks,_ Adam said with the minute incline of his head. 

_Anytime,_ said the dipping of Cam’s chin.

 

**Thursday**

Thursday passed in a blur of Adam trying to get ahead on his homework. He’d still have to study while Ronan visited, but if he dialed back his sleep and worked a double to switch shift’s with his coworker, he could manage more consecutive time with Ronan.

It was a long 24 hours.

 

**Friday**

Adam wasn’t nervous. His spiked heart rate and perpetually bouncing knee were a result of the double expresso he’d allowed Reagan to shove into his hands during their morning calculus 102 Honors class. 

That Ronan would arrive in a matter of hours had no effect on his nervous system. It was merely the caffeine transmitters waging war on his receptors that had him jittering like a jukebug.

It was a bloody neuron massacre. 

Nothing whatsoever to do with Ronan Lynch.

Adam changed three times before lunch. He finally settled on dark jeans and his white Princeton sweater. 

They hadn’t texted or talked much since Adam had invited Ronan to come visit him the other night. Ronan claimed he had things to get in order to maintain the Barns while he was away. Adam claimed he had a lot of homework to tend to.

Neither lied. But neither told the whole truth either.

Ronan had texted Adam early that morning to let him know that he’d left. But otherwise, that was it. The last of their communication. Adam knew it was a six hour and forty-seven-minute drive if Google maps was anything to go by. 

But he hadn’t heard from Ronan since. Adam knew Ronan had to have stopped for gas at some point. Plenty enough time to send Adam an update. But his inbox remained empty. 

Which was why Adam had a mini-heart attack when he opened his door on the way back from the bathrooms and found someone lounging on his bed.

“Jesus _God,_ ” Adam gasped, clutching his chest.

“Lynch works just fine. Or have I turned you devout, Parrish? It’s the jacket, isn’t it? I always knew you had a leather fetish.”

Ronan Lynch was on Adam’s twin-sized dorm bed, coiled like a viper. Everything about his posture shouted that he was here to burgle the place. Shaved head screamed prison escapee. Intentional curling and uncurling of his fingers as they played with the cotton bed fabric said they were testing its proficiency for smothering. The cruel curl of his lips were ready to deal out poisons sooner than pleasantries.

“Get your feet off the bed,” was the first thing Adam said. Because he was practical. “Cabeswater told me you got a flat halfway down I-298,” he continued. Because he was unfathomable. “You’re late,” he finished. Because he was both. 

Ronan’s answering grin was a weapon. A bait. Shiny. A sharp lure glistening in the sunlight. Drawing Adam in. If Adam gave in - if he chased the rarity of it - allowed himself to close his lips upon it. To press his lips against Ronan’s, he knew it’d sink into his skin. Hooking tight. Claiming him. Owning him. Conquering him in a matter of seconds. 

Adam didn’t take the bait.

“Sir, yes, sir.” Ronan mock-saluted Adam and swung his legs off the bed, coming to a sitting positon. All practiced nonchalance. 

But he’d listened to Adam. It was still weird, after all this time, having Ronan actually listen to him. Ronan, who’d only ever listened to Gansey. And even then it’d been more like _obeying._ A soldier following his Captain. His king. Trying to stay in his good graces so he wouldn’t be cast out.

But this? Ronan wasn’t just obeying Adam. He was actively listening to him. He wasn’t just following orders like a good soldier. He _wanted_ to be in Adam’s favor. Even if he put his own rebellious flare on it. 

Adam tried not to feel smug about his. He had more power over Ronan than Gansey ever did. The thought immediately made him sick. Ronan wasn’t a thing to _have_ , to _control._ Adam didn’t like thinking that way. This wasn’t an experiment. He loved Ronan. 

Still. He couldn’t help his own ego that relished the feeling of being chosen after so many years of being treated like trash that was threatened to be tossed out on the curb with the rest of the disposables every Tuesday. 

It was an insidious thing. Sometimes, when Adam had little sleep and allowed himself to wallow spectacularly, he’d convince himself it was just the remnants of the demon. Of when he’d possessed Adam’s hands and arms and legs. That’s why he had these thoughts. They were no fault of his own. 

Now, though, with Ronan in his dorm. His dorm at Princeton University. For the first time in his seven months of living here, the feeling left an acrid taste on his tongue, like he’d pressed it against the end of a battery. 

“Breaking into student dorms without a Guest Pass is a crime, you know,” Adam said, holding Ronan’s gaze for a fraction of a second before he began to busy himself with tidying invisible messes in the room.

He couldn’t hold Ronan’s gaze any longer because the boy’s gaze spelled trouble. Danger. Proceed At Your Own Risk. Adam knew he was the target. 

And right now, with Ronan in a dark charcoal gray sweater, leather jacket, and expensive jeans, leaning casually on his god damn _bed_ like some kind of James Dean lookalike after over a month of not seeing him was just begging for anarchy. 

Adam wouldn’t allow Ronan to catch his eye. Though he felt Ronan’s glacial gaze tracking him across his small dorm. 

Adam didn’t know how or when it happened. But suddenly Ronan was standing right in front of him. Over him. Looming like a storm. He stared down at Adam. Sharp blue eyes piercing Adam’s into place. 

Jesus _God_ Ronan radiated power. A dark, furious thing that spread across Adam’s skin. Adam couldn’t draw a full breath under the weight of it. Didn’t want to. He met Ronan’s gaze head on. _‘Two can play this game,’_ Adam’s eyes challenged.

 _“The Devil always wins,”_ said the seductive curl of Ronan’s lips.

Despite Ronan’s display of dominance, Adam knew he could have Ronan in a second. Could catch him by surprise by giving in and slamming his lips against Ronan’s. The shock would leave Ronan stunned for a few seconds. Enough time that Adam could propel them to the bed. The back of Ronan’s knees would hit the mattress and they’d both go down.

This was Adam’s territory. He had home field advantage.

Adam would crawl on top, pressing his weight into Ronan. While Ronan still had a height advantage, Adam had gained weight over the past year. He’d always been wiry from his Weights classes and long, physical hours at work. But lack of sustenance had robbed him of truly being strong. Of filling out. 

Now, though? He’d come into his muscle. With regular meals and use of the campus’ state of the art gym, he’d quickly begun straining the fabric of his old clothes. Still, he couldn’t match Ronan. Who’d been well fed his entire life, worked long hours farming, and been taught to box like a champion by Niall Lynch. 

But Adam would ride the shock wave. Press himself close to Ronan. Assert himself. Mouth warring with Ronan’s as they always did after such a long absence. Ronan would let him. For a few moments at least. Then he’d begin to struggle against Adam. Wanting to be the one on top. The one inflicting the pleasure. He’d push against Adam. All chest and well defined biceps and sculpted thighs. 

Adam would hold him off for as long as he could. But eventually Ronan would win. He would conquer as he always did. With a growl he would flip them over, somehow managing to do it gracefully in his animalistic way on the tiny bed. He’d pin Adam’s hands over his head, his grin all sharp teeth and predator who’s trapped his prey as he looked down at Adam. 

“You make it too easy, Parrish. Princeton’s made you soft,” Ronan would say. Or something equally disparaging about Adam’s Ivy League school.

Adam would allow Ronan to simmer in his perceived victory for a moment. He was trying to do more random acts of kindness these days as per Blue’s suggestion. But he’d allow it for only a single moment. And then he would sidle up, closing the few inches that still separated him from Ronan, who was poised above him on his knees, arms bracketing the sides of Adam’s head. He’d skim his nose along the sensitive skin of Ronan’s neck: jaw to collar bone. He’d roll his hips into Ronan’s but only barely. Just a brush of contact, the barest promise of something more. But it would be enough. And too much all that once. Because it’d be the most they’d had in weeks. 

Ronan would gasp, a sharp, escaped kind of thing because he wouldn’t be able to help it. And Adam would bring his lips to the shell of Ronan’s ear and whisper, “Well, if you’d like, I could leave right now. Wouldn’t want to make it too easy.”

Ronan’s grasp on Adam’s wrists would tighten and Adam would know he’d won. They both would. Ronan would growl something out and then the game would be over. Or maybe it would have just gotten started. It was hard to know the playing field with these two. But hands would grab eagerly. Trying to find as much purchase as possible in as little time as possible. Reaching to explore and reclaim lands that had gone forsaken for far too long. 

It would be hot breaths, demanding hands, sharp teeth, and wet, hungry lips. It would be all of that and more. An ocean on fire. Because that’s what happened every time Adam came back to the Barns to visit Ronan during these seven months at college. Why would it be any different here at Princeton?

They would probably never make it past Adam’s door the entire weekend.

Except none of that happened. At least not yet, anyway. 

Instead, Adam allowed Ronan to invade his personal space. He could feel the heat radiating from Ronan’s skin that’s how close he was to him. Like a car engine that’d been gunning for hours. Adam’s heart beat tipped higher. He licked his lips, imagining his tongue flicking out to taste Ronan’s skin. 

Ronan’s eyes dropped to Adam’s lips before flashing back up. Ronan was the predator. Adam the willing prey. Ronan took a step closer.

“We’re going to miss lunch,” Adam said, forcing control into his voice. Like he wasn’t falling apart at the seams in anticipation of touching Ronan Lynch.

Ronan laughed a quick, perfunctory thing. Because he thought it was a joke. He hungered for something more than food and clearly expected the same from Adam. 

Adam swallowed the lump in his throat. Fuck. What _was_ he doing? Why was he still clothed? Why were they _both_ still clothed? It’d been a month and a goddamn half since they’d seen each other. So why was he closing up like a prudish clam at the sight of Ronan in his dorm? 

Adam took a step back. “Seriously, Lynch. I eat now, you know. More than the endless supply of cold hot dogs you kept at the Barns. If we don’t get to the cafeteria by 1:00 its all breakfast bars and limp salads to pick at.”

Something dangerously close to disbelief flashed across Ronan’s eyes as he realized Adam wasn’t joking after all. Adam really wanted to go and eat lunch. Instead of fucking each other six ways to Sunday. 

“Seriously, Parrish?” Ronan says, his eyebrow cocking up. To Adam’s surprise it sounded like a genuine question. Not a harsh reprimand. Even though it’s been a steady progress over the last year and a half, it still catches Adam by surprise when Ronan can express more emotions than just anger or happiness. 

“Seriously, Lynch.”

Ronan scrubbed a hand over his shaved head. “God, Parrish. You’re still a loser even surrounded by all this white male privilege Sargent is always raving about. Fine. Let’s go see what $48k of debt a year to The Man affords you.”

Adam rolled his eyes. But he was pleased. If Ronan pressed harder. Further. If he’d attached his lips to Adam’s it would have been game over. Maybe Ronan knew this, maybe he didn’t. Adam was grateful all the same. He needed to breathe. And Ronan robbed all the air from his lungs. It was a kind of pleasurable pain he craved. Could be consumed by. He couldn’t let that happen. Not yet, anyway.

Adam led Ronan to the dining hall. His nerves buzzed, as alive and ferocious as a ley line. They burned their way into his throat. Ronan was going to meet his friends. Ronan was going to meet his friends. Ronan was going to meet his friends.

Adam swallowed. Fuck.

They talked on the way to the Dining Hall…Er, didn’t they? Adam was sure they did. Ronan wasn’t one for small talk. Neither was Adam. But it’d been awhile. Surely they had things to say to each other. They’d said things. He was sure of it. 

But then they were in the cafeteria. Adam saw the back of Viv’s and Cam’s and Sai’s and Raegan’s heads. The others sat across from them. Adam marched towards them. He did this every day. Today was no different. 

Ellie spotted them first. Her eyes landed on Adam. They brightened, warm and soft and reassuring. The light in the storm, as always. She reminded him of Persephone. He knew he needed to stop comparing his Princeton friends with his Henrietta ones. Needed to stop seeking substitutes. Stop worshipping false gods. He would. Soon.

Then her eyes flickered to Ronan walking next to him. Her expression went supernova. He’d never seen her so affected. She was a sentry on duty. Meant to alert the others of coming danger. But her only defense was a gaping month and hands that scrambled for purchase against the dining table and were found wanting as she fumbled. 

It was her ineffective warning system that allowed Adam and Ronan to arrive at the table relatively unannounced.

“Oh, hello!” Ellie finally chirped. 

Everyone’s heads turned immediately toward them.


	3. Shallow Breaths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Eek! It's been so long, I'm sorry! I'm not gonna give a whole spiel cuz I'm sure you just want to read since i've made you wait far, far too long. Thank you for sticking with this and waiting and all the AMAZING comments. Love you all to pieces <3 **

**Friday continued…**

Adam didn’t know who to look at: Ronan. Or his friends looking at Ronan. So his eyes skittered around between them all, like a leaf at the wind’s torrid mercy.

Adam almost laughed. One half mirth and one half relief. Hold the sugar. What he saw on his friends’ faces as they regarded Ronan was no different than what he saw on everyone else’s faces when they regarded him. 

The spark of intrigue. An ember quickly breathed into a flame as they observed the handsome edges of Ronan’s face. His lean, athletic build forged under hours of farm work and boxing, visible even under his dark, expensive long sleeved sweater. There was a litheness to Ronan, Adam had observed after awhile of knowing him. Hard lines etched into him by hard work. Anyone who thought Ronan Lynch was a slacker just because he’d dropped out of high school didn’t know what they were talking about. Ronan worked harder than almost anyone Adam knew.

“Whoa. You’re scarier than I expected,” Nico said from across the table, eyes wide as he looked Ronan up and down. 

Ronan met Nico’s confession with a raised eyebrow and a loaded silence. 

Nico, ever a rubber ducky in the bathtub that was life, took no offense to Ronan’s lack of words. Most others would have flinched at the very least. “No offense, man. I just, I mean, have you seen all the tweed vests here? The only place you’ll see leather jackets is in the deleted history of a browser search. And while that may be a prevalent fetish, I just didn’t anticipate it being one of Adam’s.”

If Ronan had hair that wasn’t scraped to his skull, his eyebrows would have disappeared into it. Adam rolled his eyes and held back a smile for Ronan’s sake. Nico was like one of those cars you found in a fast food happy meal that’d been wound back too far and had released itself without permission, wheels turning at a hundred miles a minute to reach a destination even Nico wasn’t sure of. 

“Forgive Nico, he’s had too much to drink,” Sai said. It was one in the afternoon. Sai nodded at Nico’s third expresso of the day. “I’m Sai, Ethics major. But you can call me whatever you’d like. Free will is a basic human right, after all.”

After that the others followed suit, going around and introducing themselves, major included like it was addition to their birth certificates.  
The last one to go was Cam. 

“Cameron Vanderhilde. Macroeconomics major,” Cameron said, looking up from his astrology book. “Pleasure to meet you. Adam has spoken highly of you.”

Adam, who’d been trying to watch Ronan’s reaction to his friends without _seeming_ like he was watching Ronan’s reactions to his friends, went from side-eyeing Ronan to full out staring. For some reason, seeing how Ronan reacted to Cam had Adam the most worried.

Ronan regarded Cam’s easy smile, judging what Cam was offering with it. A display of too much teeth or not enough or the faintest hint of fakeness would be enough for Ronan to write him off completely. There was only ever black and white with Ronan. Adam had learned this over the years of being forced into his company as a side effect of seeking Gansey’s friendship. It had been a perpetual leg stuck out to knock him over with anytime Adam tried to navigate that first year of friendship with Ronan.

Try to wade into the gray area of right and wrong, truth or a lie, intentions vs. actions with Ronan Lynch and you’d find yourself of the sharp end of his words, wounded before you even knew you’d been struck. 

But Ronan had grown. It wasn’t fair to think of him as that same hostile youth who raged at the world. Even though Adam’s attraction had grown while Ronan was still that hostile youth, it was what Ronan was becoming that was making Adam fall in love with him.

So when Ronan acknowledged Cam with an incline of his head and a mild, “Hey, man,” as a way of reply, Adam felt something inside of him ease. Like a stitch in his ribs smoothing itself out. 

It was easy after that. Well, easier. They grabbed food and joined Adam’s friends at the table. They set upon Ronan like a pack of starving dogs. In this case their sustenance was truth. Explorers finally presented with the object of their desire. Like Gansey, Adam thought with some humor, presented with Glendower. If Glendower had actually been alive to bombard with questions, that is. 

Adam bit into a slice of pizza, ready to rescue Ronan or more likely rescue the others from Ronan if need be, but it wasn’t necessary. There was some initial adjusting in the beginning. Some tuning as they got used to Ronan’s terseness. The loud group was not used to Ronan’s disinterest in lengthy answers or casual exchanges in general. Trying to get to know Ronan Lynch was like rubbing up against sandpaper. Uncomfortable and chafed you in certain areas and got worse the harder you tried- the more pressure you applied. 

But once you realized the design wasn’t meant to inflict pain, maybe just mild to moderate discomfort, you got used to the feeling. 

Raegan had managed to pull Ronan into a discussion about cars at some point. Which Adam thought was funny because Raegan had no interest in cars whatsoever. He tried to catch her eye but she wouldn’t let him. Adam fought a smirk. She surprised him. Out of all his friends, he would have thought her the least likely to try to impress Ronan. 

It pleased Adam more than he’d like to admit that his friends were so keen to include Ronan. To impress him. He’d been worried how his two worlds would coincide. Collide. The world of mystery and uncanniness that had been Aglionby and Glendower, and the world of reality and normalcy that was Princeton. How could he marry the two? He hadn’t known. It wasn’t why he’d been afraid to have Ronan out; that was a side effect. But it had eaten at him in a familiar way. Gnawed. Demanding and relentless. 

Though what really bit into him, he refused to let surface. Refused to give yard time to. He didn’t trust it. Didn’t think feeding it, even to tame it, would be safe. It was a wild thing. Unfamiliar. A branch of his fears. But he wouldn’t let this one beat him. He wouldn’t let it ruin things with Ronan. Not when things were finally going so right for him. For them.

He pressed his leg up against Ronan’s. The first touch they’d had in months. It was electric even through his second-hand slacks and Ronan’s expensive jeans. Adam bit his lip to fight back a sharp exhale of breath. God, what was he doing? Why was he here, fully clothed, in the middle of the school cafeteria while Ronan sat next to him?

Why were they both still clothed? 

_You know why,_ a voice nagged in the back of Adam’s mind. _You’re the relentless scientist. Ruthless. You can’t resist testing your hypothesis. You won’t be happy until you do._

Adam licked his lip and canted his neck down. He didn’t trust himself to look at Ronan. Ronan, ruthless in his pursuit of truth, ripping it from himself and the others around him. He couldn’t let Ronan analyze him now. Adam knew his boyfriend wouldn’t like what he found. Could already see the savage drawing together of Ronan’s brows. The storm clouds forming across his handsome face, made more attractive by his rage.

Breathing out a steadying breath, Adam forced himself back to the present. He left Ronan to his friends’ devices. If anyone could survive an onslaught of ravenous Princeton minds, it was Ronan Lynch, impervious to prestige and general pompous bullshit. He leaned across the table to peek at Cam’s astrology book.

“You’re a Cancer, right?”

Adam’s first reaction was to recoil. He panicked. Had Cam finally gotten his number seven whole months later? Adam was a plague. A cancer. A harbinger of doom and danger and misfortune. Where he went, destruction followed. 

“Your Zodiac sign, right?” Cam said, blinking over at Adam.

“Oh, um, yes, I think so?” Adam was pretty sure it was. Okay, he knew it was. He remembered Maura and the rest of the psychics at Blue’s house mentioning it on many occasions during their sessions. He didn’t want Cam to know how much he was involved with astrology and the whole psychic world. It just wasn’t something Princeton students took seriously even though Astronomy was actually a difficult class. A lot of math and study involved. But still. Adam shied away from his own truth. He wasn’t ashamed, but he didn’t want to be defined by his Henrietta habits. He’d fought hard for this fresh start; he didn’t see anything wrong with not spilling his whole life story for his Princeton friends to see. Still, he hoped Ronan wasn’t listening. He knew the boy would catch on, like scenting blood in the water, and wouldn’t like Adam’s mis-truths. 

“Your birthday is July 3rd, right?”

Adam rubbed at the back of his neck and cleared his throat before saying, “Yeah.” He was surprised Cam remembered. He struggled to remember when he’d mentioned it. It had to have been months ago, maybe when they’d all first met?

Cam smiled, curls bouncing as he leaned forward over his textbook. “Do you want to know your horoscope? I was only joking earlier when I told Nico he should avoid the number five and seek out green foods this week. I’m just trying to get him to eat his vegetables.”

Cam said it so deadpan but still with a sense of genuine motivation that the laugh burst out of Adam. It drew the attention of the others.

“Care to share with the class?” Reagan asked, dark eyebrow arched at them from across the table.

Cam cleared his throat and made a show of shuffling his papers together. “Oh, just school stuff. Nothing worth sharing.” He said it off-hand, breezily dismissive. Easy and confident. The others shrugged, or rolled their eyes good-naturedly but looked away, already re-engaging in their conversations. They missed the way Cam snuck a glance at Adam out of the corner of his eye and winked conspiratorially, amusement causing the dimple in his cheek to appear.

However, it was the weight of eyes on the side of his face that drew Adam’s attention. Adam allowed himself to be reeled in. Ronan’s glacial blue eyes stared back at him. Narrowed just the slightest. Maybe it was just the startling clarity of them, like staring into depths of the ocean and being able to see all the way to the bottom floor, but Adam felt as if Ronan could see into the very depths of him. All the way through.

Normally this had the dual effect of being a little unsettling but also, strangely, comforting. Ronan could pierce through the veil of unknowable Adam Parrish. Could reach into the dirt and pull out all the shiny, hidden treasures that Adam hadn’t even known were inside of him. Could make Adam see that even the broken things were beautiful. Ronan had a green thumb when it came to nurturing all the things inside of him that Adam thought were beyond salvaging. 

Now, though, Ronan’s gaze made his cheeks warm, made his heart beat quicken like a rabbit spotted in the bushes by a hungry wolf. He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t like the feeling. Adam’s initial instinct was to draw himself up. To make himself appear bigger and badder than he really was. Anger tended to be the loudest thing in the room. A great weapon in defense, even if the one who wielded it had no right to be doing so.

But then Ronan was looking away, allowing himself to be drawn back in by something Ellie was saying.

Adam breathed out through his nose. A crushing pressure he hadn’t even realized was pressing into his chest eased. It was replaced with the sudden fierce desire to be alone with Ronan. To be the only thing Ronan’s hungry eyes laid upon.

Adam shot to his feet before he realized how crazy that probably made him look. “I’m going to give Ronan a tour of the campus,” he declared with more vigor than he intended. Several pairs of startled eyes blinked up at him. Before he could let anyone overcome their surprise or offer to come with, he started to turn away from the table, hoping Ronan would follow him without question or protest. “I’ll text you guys later.”

It was only when Adam was at the cafeteria door that he allowed himself to look over his shoulder to see if Ronan had followed. And there his boyfriend was, dark presence haunting him step for step. 

“Hope I didn’t interrupt anything important,” Adam said it like a joke. Smirked a little for effect to hide his sudden jitters. “Sai didn’t get you to sign any petitions, did he? He can be persuasive. Says it’s the ethic’s major in him but I’m pretty sure it’s the fact his parents own over 50 car dealerships. Salesmanship is in his blood.” 

Ronan nodded solemnly. “Yeah, my bullshit-meter must be broken from all the time I’ve been spending in DC with Declan. We’ve got plans on Saturday, now. How do you feel about including regular cavity searches into your class curriculums? To stimulate creativity. That’s what we’re marching for tomorrow.”

Adam grinned, squinting up at Ronan as they stepped into the early afternoon sun. “That’s noble of you to dedicate both of our Saturday’s to such a worthy cause. Gansey would be proud.”

“Fuck yeah he would be.” Ronan’s answering grin was a wild and ferocious thing.

Adam’s hand shot out to grab Ronan’s. Without a word he pulled them into the nearest corner, a little slice of shadow underneath the arch of a brick doorway. He pushed Ronan up against it. His blood pounding in his ears, Adam pressed every inch of himself against Ronan. He forced himself to pause only for the briefest of moments even as his body screamed at him to taketaketake nownownow. He looked up at Ronan, a simple question in his eyes. Ronan was out. But that didn’t necessarily mean Ronan was okay with publicly making out on Adam’s campus where anyone could walk by and see, even if they were pretty well hidden in the shadow of the doorway.

“Finally,” Ronan growled out in answer and slammed his lips onto Adam’s. The pull of hands, the fire of lips against skin, the rage of heart beats thundering. It was more than Adam could take and not enough at the same time.

Ronan was the smell of earth after it rained. The comfort of curling into the warm afternoon sun. All the raging colors of a summer sunset splayed across the sky. The feel of a thousand hands demanding moremoremore. 

Ronan was Home.

Adam hadn’t realized until that moment how desperately he missed that feeling. He clung to it now. Starved for it. Raked his starving teeth across it.

Ronan met him bite for bite. 

Adam moaned into Ronan’s mouth. Ronan answered by pressing Adam into the hard stone wall behind him, rough, strong hands digging relentlessly into him. Ronan was savage in every way, including his kisses. It was everything Adam expected of him and more. Possessive and aggressive, demanding and endearing. Ronan did nothing half-ass. He hurtled himself into a kiss the way he hurtled himself into everything in life. 

It was more than Adam could take. He ripped himself away from Ronan.

“PDA is prohibited on campus,” Adam gasped out. It was difficult to speak because Ronan chased after his lips, trying to reclaim them, even as Adam tried to speak. “I could get a warning.”

“You plan on getting caught, Parrish?” Ronan said like he welcomed the challenge. Lust made his eyelids heavy as he gazed at Adam from underneath long, dark lashes. Ronan’s lips descended upon Adam’s neck, nipping at his skin.

Adam’s eyes rolled back into his head. “Fuck, Ronan.”

“Say ‘please’,” Ronan taunted, low and throaty. His words simmered and melted, dripping tantalizingly like liquid gold against Adam’s throat.

“Fuck off,” Adam bit out unsteadily. It wasn’t his most elegant exchange, but he didn’t care. His hands dug into the skin at Ronan’s hips unapologetically, ripping him forward.

Ronan chuckled darkly. He peered down at Adam, eyes glacial. Ronan Lynch was the perfect predator. He drew you in, intoxicating you with his good looks; it was your own fault if you ignored the sharp claws crafted elegantly for killing, the hungry mouth brooding for a fight. 

Ronan’s gaze was a powerful thing. His tongue swept out to lick his lips, brushing Adam’s along the way. His long, work-roughened fingers encircled Adam’s fine-boned wrists, locking heavily around them like shackles. He suddenly brought Adam’s wrists up, locking them together over Adam’s head. 

The strain of Adam’s muscles warring with his bones for a comfortable position was both uncomfortable and erotic. Fuck, he was so hard.

“I’m gonna make you beg for it, Parrish,” Ronan said, voice like honeyed gravel rumbling in a diesel engine. His eyes fluttered down to Adam’s throat as he pressed his hips forward. Barely above a whisper, he pressed his lips to the shell of Adam’s ear and said, “Even with your ivy league education, when I’m through with you, you won’t even be able to remember your name.”

A wrecking ball swung through all of Adam’s defenses. 

“Dorm. Bed. Now.” Grabbing on to his hand, he dragged a smirking, triumphant Ronan behind him.

**Saturday Morning**

Adam blinked at the sleeping form of his boyfriend lying next to him in bed. Adam’s bed. In his dorm. At Princeton. It had taken 7 months for him to allow Ronan to visit him. The rest of the day and night had been a blur after they’d gotten back to his dorm room. Every muscle in Adam’s body ached. 

Adam tried to think back, to wade through the hours of last night with Ronan. Where had they gone? Lost between needy touches and hungry kisses, between fits of laughter and teasing remarks. Adam had made a schedule. He’d had plans for him and Ronan to follow yesterday. A tour of the campus. Dinner. A game night with his friends. 

They’d done none of that. 

Adam didn’t regret it.

A voice that sounded awfully like Ronan whispered in the back of his head, _‘Lie.’_

Adam’s mouth screwed up. He wanted to fight it. But the sinking in his stomach, the whirlpool pulling his heart down into it, refused to let him. He screwed his eyes shut. Fuck. What was wrong with him?

He’d always accused Ronan of being bad about ignoring his feelings. About talking about them. But was he really any better? Ronan had driven 6 hours here and had been offering to do it every week since Adam started school. He never expected Adam to be the one to drive down. Never wanted Adam to take 6 precious hours away from his studies. Maybe Ronan didn’t talk about his feelings that much, but he was doing a helluva lot better at showing them than Adam was. 

Adam’s eyes skimmed the sharp angles of Ronan’s nose, followed it down to the curves of his lips, slack with sleep. It was hard to believe Ronan Lynch wasn’t actually a dream-thing sometimes. That something so beautiful yet so savage could coexist all in one person. 

Adam breathed a silent groan through the barrier of his teeth. Fuck, what was wrong with him? Why was he fighting the urge to shove Ronan awake? To tell him to leave. That this was a mistake? Why did he want Ronan _out, out, out?_

The thing about Adam Parrish was that he’d never had anything he hadn’t torn himself apart to obtain. Never had anything that hadn’t been earned by fighting tooth and nail for it. 

Except for Ronan Lynch.

The boy came delivered to him on a silver platter. And he’d taken it. Him. But Adam was past the novelty of it all. Past the awe of it. Now he looked for the hidden lever that would pull it all out from under his feet.

Adam would tinker and toil and tear apart all of it until he was absolutely sure he was deserving of this. That it wasn’t just a fluke. It didn’t matter that he might not be able to put all the pieces back together at the end. If there were any pieces of it left at all.

Adam didn’t know what to do with this soft, fragile thing that’d been presented to him. Had no nurturing nature to foster it. Adam deserved many things in life because he’d grown them himself. From work to school to the community of friends he’d built at college. But none of those had been handed to him. 

He thought back on the night Ronan first kissed him. When’d he’d told Gansey about it. He knew what Gansey thought of him – what his golden best friend still thought. That Adam was a scientist. That he’d go into this relationship with Ronan simply trying to test a hypothesis. To poke and prod and cut open until he explored it from all angles until he had collected and analyzed enough evidence to decide what to do with it.

That wasn’t the case. He wanted Ronan, every sharp piece of him, more than he wanted almost anything in his life. But how could he keep him without knowing that what was between them wasn’t merely circumstance? Being with Ronan was the hardest choice, the most difficult path to take. Adam had known this. But the same wasn’t true for Ronan. Adam was the easiest choice. He was a decent-looking boy aware of all of Ronan’s secrets and oddities and full of his own secrets and oddities. 

Ronan Lynch didn’t make friends easily. Didn’t care for them. Didn’t care to try. Befriending Ronan was an accomplishment. Usually it involved finding yourself between his jaws, a prey animal who’d gotten itself lodged between them but somehow found itself alive at the end. Adam had survived because he’d never just rolled over and exposed his neck. His cool indifference towards the caustic boy and refusal to be bullied was what Adam thought had won Ronan over in the end. But still, in terms of relationships, it had been a bloody battle with Ronan. It still left Adam a bit in awe that Ronan had gone from desiring to see Adam torn to pieces and left on the road side for vultures to pick at, to being the object of Ronan’s desire. 

Who else could Ronan, a dreamer, share his secrets with?

Adam, as softly as he dared without waking Ronan up, trailed the tips of his fingers over the stubble of Ronan’s shaved head. Trailed them down to his neck where his fingers had rested (and gripped in passion) countless times before.

Biting his lip, he allowed himself to enjoy this moment. The steady rise and fall of Ronan’s chest, the pulse in his neck, a beat Adam had grown familiar with all these longs months past. A beat he sometimes found himself subconsciously tapping a rhythm to on his desk or on the lunch room table or his own knee throughout the day. 

And like that, it was decided. He tucked his emotions away, folding them neatly, pressing down to form even creases, and stored them in a corner of his heart for safe keeping. Such delicate things had no place hanging around the razor-sharp edges of the tools Adam was preparing to deploy to test his hypothesis. They’d be hacked to bits, carved into bloody ruins in seconds if introduced to each other.

Because Adan knew what needed to be done. Adam’s knew his goal for this weekend. He’d let Ronan explore, let him see that he had options here and anywhere else he looked. He’d prove to Ronan that he’d be alright if Ronan wanted something – someone – else. The sharp pain that stabbed at his chest at the thought robbed Adam of his breath, momentarily. It took a second to steel himself, to will his spine straighter. He could – and would – do this.

Unbidden, the image of Gansey on the porch of the Barns the night Adam told him Ronan had kissed him that first time, sprang into his mind again. The way worry crowded its way between Gansey’s brow, winning out over his shock. The way he had begged without begging Adam to be careful with Ronan’s fragile heart. 

The scientist in Adam plucked that imagine away, cool and clinical, before its effects could get into his blood stream, could infect his own tentative heart, and hid it away next to his carefully folded emotions. 

Pulling his hand away, he ignored the uneasy gallop of his heart, strong-arming it into compliance, into a steady rhythm. 

He had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***peeks between fingers* Ughh, remember how I said in the first chapter notes that I ALWAYS write happy endings? Just remember that I still 100% stick by that, okay?!!**
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> **There's only one more chapter to go! Your comments and reviews mean everything in pushing me to write more, so if you have the time, they'd be greatly appreciated. Let me know your thoughts on the events unfolding so far or whatever is going on in that gorgeous brain of yours! <3 <3 <3**
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> **Find me on tumblr: guardian-of-the-arc :)**


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